LONDON, England – United Kingdom delegates who attended last week’s Diaspora Conference in Jamaica have given good reviews of the discussions that took place and of the decisions taken for follow-up action.

Fifty-five delegates from across the UK, representing a range of community organisations, business and professional persons, attended the June 16 to 17 conference in Kingston.

The UK/Jamaican community members had already expressed enthusiasm about the conference, and the delegates who spoke to JIS News described the two days of talks and meetings as rewarding and worthwhile.

Paulette Simpson and Travis Johnson were both selected as the UK’s representatives to the Diaspora Advisory Board. The selection came at the end of the conference, following a resolution to set up the board, which will advise the minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade in between conferences on issues relating to the Diaspora.

State minister in the ministry, Senator Delano Franklyn said board members would have access to the minister and would meet with him at least once every six months. The board will come up for review at each biennial conference.

Both Simpson and Johnson said that the follow-up work to be done would be the true test of the success of the conference.

“There is a lot of work to be done on very important issues. But what was clear from the conference is that the major issues of concern for us in the UK were the same for others in the United States and Canada,” Simpson told JIS News.

She said the conference was important as it looked at the how the government could include Jamaicans overseas in developing policy, and how Jamaicans abroad could become organised.

“The conference looked at how the government can encourage us to be more organised and contribute in a more organised way and how Jamaicans in our own jurisdictions can organise to influence decisions that affect Jamaica,” Simpson said.

Johnson felt that the Diaspora conference left delegates revitalised. “It was very well worth it. In every aspect it went very well; it was well planned and executed. It was certainly good to get together with colleagues from the United States and Canada and to see that so many of our interests were the same,” he said.

He told JIS News that it was important that the necessary follow-up action be taken to ensure that the conference was more than a get-together.

Chairman of the Afro-Caribbean Resource Centre in Birmingham, Martin Blissett said the conference was effective and had raised the expectations of Jamaicans overseas.

“The next year or so until the next conference will be critical. If there is not follow-up and we are at another conference and have not moved forward, then it would have been wasted,” he said. He was optimistic, however, that there would be action.

Meanwhile, Snowden Reid director of international affairs at City College, Birmingham, said the conference provided an opportunity for interaction and networking among the delegates from different countries and also with government ministers and other officials in both the private and public sectors.